Chick-fil-A Beats KFC as Top Chicken Chain With Far Fewer Stores

Chick-fil-A has quite a lot to cluck about, now that the fast-food chicken chain has topped KFC for sales in 2013, and did so with far fewer stores.

“As a whole, limited-service restaurants saw a sales bump of 3.9 percent,” Technomic reported as part of its annual Top 500 Chain Restaurant report. “Chicken chains, which grew 5.1 percent, represented another limited-service sub segment with above-average sales growth. Chick-fil-A grew 9.3 percent with 2013 sales of $5.1 billion and surpassed KFC as the top chicken chain.” KFC’s total sales last year were $4.22 billion.

The fast-food financial reporting website said Chick-fil-A reported $3.15 million average sales per store compared to KFC’s $957,000 average store sales in 2012.

While KFC still has more stores and has closed some locations since hitting a peak in 2004, Chick-fil-A plans to continue expanding in northern, western, and Midwestern states. Annual traffic averages at Chick-fil-A restaurants are also higher than at KFC stores, despite Chick-fil-A stores being closed on Sundays.